Charlotte Observer

The N.C. Department of Transportation’s contract with a private developer to build toll lanes on Interstate 77 includes a controversial noncompete clause that could hinder plans to build new free lanes on the highway for 50 years.

The clause has long been part of the proposed contract. But it was changed in late 2013 or early 2014 to also include two new free lanes around Lake Norman – an important $431 million project supported by local transportation planners.

The White House announced Saturday that President Barack Obama will return to Charlotte next week. Specific details are to come, but White House officials said Obama will travel to the Charlotte area on April 15 for an event on the economy.

The Charlotte visit appears to be a continuation of a tour to select cities to promote the administration's work on the economy. The visits come following a March jobs report that fell short of expectations. Employers added just 126,000 jobs in March, according to the Labor Department. That's the weakest showing in more than a year.

The Ritz-Carlton in uptown Charlotte issued an apology Friday to anyone offended by the 15 percent service charge the hotel billed patrons in its lounge during the CIAA basketball tournament Feb. 24-28.

“We would like to apologize to any guests we may have offended by the addition of a service charge we implemented at a recent event in our lobby lounge,” the apology said.

CHARLOTTE A Lake Wylie couple was shot to death in their home in October to prevent one of them from testifying in court about the May robbery of their Charlotte mattress store, a North Carolina prosecutor said in court Thursday.

Monique Holman, a Mecklenburg County assistant district attorney, told District Court Judge Karen Eady-Williams during an extradition hearing that Doug and Debbie London were killed to keep Doug London from testifying against two men charged with the May 25 robbery of the couple's Wholesale Mattress Warehouse.

Born in 1922, Sifford grew up caddying on Charlotte’s whites-only golf courses for 60 cents a day. He often said he would give 50 cents to his mother and keep the remaining 10 cents to buy a cigar, which became his trademark look in later years.

Charlotte’s United Way has hired a new executive director who’s young, has worked for United Ways his entire career and will bring top-tier fundraising experience to an agency still rebuilding after an executive pay scandal rocked the community in 2008.

Sean Garrett, 32 and currently vice president of development for United Way Worldwide in New York City, will begin the job in Charlotte on March 1 – just after the end of the United Way’s 2014-15 fundraising campaign.

A social worker with the Mecklenburg County Department of Social Services pleaded guilty Thursday in federal court to charges that she sold the identities of Medicaid patients in a fraudulent claims scheme, prosecutors said.

Ieshia Hicks Watkins, 33, of Charlotte, pleaded guilty to one count of health care fraud conspiracy and one count of receiving illegal kickbacks.

Watkins faces a maximum of 10 years in prison for the health care fraud charge and five years for the kickback plea. She also faces a maximum fine of $500,000 for the two charges.

The FBI is now investigating embezzlement claims at a Huntersville private school, the agency’s Charlotte office said Wednesday.

The investigation follows news that the chief financial officer of SouthLake Christian Academy and the pastor who helped found the school 20 years ago had resigned amid a probe into financial mismanagement. The FBI will be joined by the Huntersville Police Department.